I'm a faculty member in the Department of
Earth & Environmental Sciences
(E&ES; ees2.geo.rpi.edu/index.html) at
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
(www.rpi.edu). My area
of expertise is geochemistry, and I specialize mainly but not exclusively in the
deep Earth. In simple terms, I try to figure
out what's going on inside our planet in regions inaccessible by drilling or
other means of direct observation. I am interested primarily in the chemical composition and
materials present in these regions and the ways in which these
have changed over geologic time through volcanic activity and
other processes. My research could be described as "materials science
of the Earth", and it involves designing and
executing laboratory experiments at the high temperatures and
pressures appropriate to the Earth's deep crust and upper mantle
(that is, to depths of about 150 kilometers). I study a variety of
processes at these conditions, including flow of melts and fluids (H2O-CO2
mixtures), migration of atoms in crystals and melts, growth and dissolution
rates of crystals, uptake of trace elements during crystal growth, localization
of trace elements at grain boundaries, microstructural (i.e., geometric) aspects
of partially molten rocks, and high-temperature behavior of rare-element
minerals that concentrate radioactive elements, making them useful in studies of
Earth history and evolution. I've recently made research forays into
phenomena related to the study of climate change -- specifically, the
fundamental aspects of climate proxies (that is, chemical signatures of past
climatic conditions). My teaching activities include geochemistry, earth materials (mineralogy and petrology) and general
science.